A New World
by district4-shadowhunter
Summary: Maisy is a normal teenager who is a bit of an oucast...until she discovers that she is a Shadowhunter and is taken to the New York Institute to learn the Shadowhunter ways. Meeting famous and new Shadowhunters alike, Maisy must learn her new culture as fast as she can if she wishes to survive. OC/ serious lemons/ JacexClary/ mature


***Hey readers this is my first fanfiction posted here so I hope you enjoy it. Warning for violence/ swearing/ later hard-core lemons *hehe* Also none of these characters belong to me except Maisy and her family. Cassandra Clare owns Clary and Jace and all the other wonderful TMI characters and all of it is her own. If you like this PLEASE COMMENT AND REVIEW AND LIKE AND WHATEVER YOU CAN. It gets really good soon I promise***

One.

I have lived a lie. My life before now has been some sort of implant, some disillusioned reality, which was merely put in place of the truth. Looking back on my sixteen years of existence before now, it feels distant. Every relationship I have feels glossed over, a layer added—I am not who they thought I was. I am not who _I _thought I was.

It was my sixteenth birthday when the letter arrived. It was a normal day in my hometown—Battle Creek aka the Cereal City. It was a Saturday which made my birthday one hundred per cent better. There was nothing greater than having a day off for your sixteenth. I wasn't planning anything special; a party was kind of out considering that I had about zero people to invite. I don't have many friends and the few people that I do sit with at lunch and share notes with in class aren't the partying types. I don't like socialising anyway. People tend to make fun of me, to exclude me and make up rumours about me. They make fun of my glasses, my unfashionable clothing…my weight. They moo at me in classes or stick McDonalds ads on my locker or throw food at me and try and make me eat it. It is especially hard since my parents are extremely fit and don't understand how bad it felt being naturally large. Last time I weighed myself I was around 200 pounds but that was years ago and I've put on since then. Sometimes I wish I'd grow taller so it would be less noticeable, sometimes I wish I'd just lose the weight, sometimes I wish I'd just be invisible altogether.

Walking outside to grab the mail, I was expecting some sort of package from my grandparents. They lived in New York and were always sending me things although sometimes my mom would snatch them away and hide them. I didn't know why. I wasn't allowed to talk to them much on the phone and my mother hardly ever talked about them or her childhood so I only assumed that there was some bad blood between them. My mom and I weren't very close; there was always this wall between us that I could never quite get past.

I opened the mailbox and pulled out a crumpled paper package. Racing back inside, I sat down to catch my breath and ripped open the package with my short nails. Two boxes fell out onto my lap along with two envelopes. One envelope was for me, one for my mum. I carefully opened the one labelled "Maisy" and read the first couple of lines.

_Katelyn, we need to talk. An official decision has been made to call all the young untrained shadowhunters to the New York institute. Training needs to—_

I frowned. My grandma must have put my mom's letter in my envelope. But…what was she talking about when she said "shadowhunters"? I knew my grandma and grandfather worked at an institute for the…well, I couldn't quite remember what the institute was for but I knew it was called the institute. I decided that maybe shadowhunters was jargon for something so I put the letter aside and opened mine—doubt still lingered in the back of my mind.

_Dear Maisy,_

_We miss you so much here in New York. It has been such a long time since you have visited us! Happy sixteenth birthday darling we have enclosed some money (to come visit us, hopefully!), some nice treats from NYC and one other thing. I really hope that you choose to come see us even if your mother and father won't. We would be happy to have you stay and there are some people here that we're sure you'd love to meet! Happy birthday again love, your grandfather sends you his best wishes. Don't forget your poor grandparents down in New York!_

_Love Grandma. _

I smiled to myself, biting my lip. It had been a very long time since I'd seen my grandparents, so long in fact that I couldn't remember their features very well. All I could really remember was that they were a lot younger than most people's grandparents. They were in their early sixties when most people my age had seventy or eighty year old grandparents. They had had my mother young; she was forty five.

I picked up one of the two boxes and shook it. I could hear candy rattling inside. I urged it open and took a few of the hard candies in my mouth, swirling them around and savouring the taste. We didn't have much junk food in the house because of my parents' healthy eating so to get decent food I had to go out and secretly buy stuff. I threw two more pieces of candy into my mouth and picked up the second box. It was heavier and the box was made of wood instead of tin but it was still quite small. Opening it up, I found myself looking at some sort of pen. A stick? It was silver and long with strange writing on it…not English, that's for sure.

In that moment, my mother came through the front door. I looked up at her and smiled but she didn't smile back. She just stared at the silver pen-thing in my hand.

"Maisy?" she gasped, striding forward. "Where did you get that?"

"Gran sent it to me with my birthday presents." I frowned down at the silver thing then back up at my mom. "What is it?"

"Give it to me," she shrieked, shoving her hand forward. I pulled back, staring suspiciously.

"Why? Tell me what it is and I'll give it to you."

"Just do what I say Maisy I swear to god," she hissed, grabbing the thing out of my hand. My hands were so uncoordinated that I couldn't manage to keep it in my grip.

"What's your problem?" I demanded. "What is wrong with it?"

"What else did your grandma send you?" my mother, Kat, growled.

I smiled wickedly, frustrated by my mother's behaviour, and picked up the letter that was for her. "Grandma says; Katelyn, we need to talk. An official decision has been made to call all the young untrained shadowhunters—" Mom snatches the letter out of my hand before I can read another word. Her bright blue eyes read the letter rapidly. She goes pale.

"How much of this did you read?" she inquired, her voice strained.

"Enough to wonder what a shadowhunter is," I said defiantly. My mother rubbed her forehead, crumpling the letter in her hand. There were tears in the corners of her eyes and I felt bad. I got up and wrapped my huge arms around her, trying not to squeeze too hard. She just stood there and sobbed. "What is it mom?" I finally asked. "What's happening?" I felt bad for being such a brat with handing over the stuff. I felt like I shouldn't have read the letter.

"You're sixteen now Maisy—there are options that I need to explain to you. There are things that you don't know."

My stomach sunk. The first thing that came to mind was adoption. Surely I was adopted. _My two parents are blonde and brilliant, tanned and white smiled and intelligent, _I reflected. _I have thin mousy hair and glasses and weak features and a round body. I must be adopted._

"Okay. Tell me then."

"Not now," my mother muttered. "I think we'll make tonight special. You can have anything you want for dinner, anything. Your father and I will sit down with you and have a long chat, how does that sound?"

"Good," I agreed and my heart sunk even further. Suddenly it was looking like this wasn't going to be a great birthday after all.

I brought the KFC in in silence. Our house, a modest townhouse, had a sombre mood layered over it. Through the front windows I could see my mother on the phone, yelling. I guess she was talking to her parents. I cringed and followed my father inside. It had been hours since the letter incident with my mother and I was burning to know what she was going to tell me. My father had looked at me sideways in the line for KFC but had said nothing and made no effort to start a conversation. On the way home in the car I had eaten chips and stared out the window as the radio commentators droned on.

We went into the dining room and set out the food on paper plates. Pouring myself a cup of coke I sat down at the head of the table and gnawed on chicken thigh nervously. My father sat down next to me and avoided eye contact; instead he picked at the chicken with a disgusted look on his face. Ugh, as if tasty food was a foreign concept.

"I haven't had KFC before," my mother announced as she sat down on my left. It felt like an accusation but I didn't really care at that point about her food obsession. I just wanted to hear what she had to say about all of this.

"So…what's the story?" I began, trying to lighten the mood. My mother just sighed hollowly.

"This is going to be hard for you to understand and accept Maisy so just listen to everything I say before you interject, alright?"

"Okay."

"Today you found an item that your grandmother had sent you—unsolicited, might I add. It is not a toy or a pen or even a weapon. It is called a stele. It is…part of _my _culture. Your father's as well."

"Your culture?" I questioned. "Like…Michigan culture?"

"No," my mother said with a slight hint of a smile. "Your father and I were born into a different society of people. We call ourselves—"

"Shadowhunters?"

"Don't interrupt," my father warned, his frown deeply embedded in his face. I fought the urge to stick my tongue out.

"Shadowhunters," my mother confirmed. "Shadowhunters are fighters, we're protectors of the goodness, of the society and the downworld society."

"What…what is that?"

My mother sighed and put her head in her hands for a moment, collected herself. Slowly, she looked back up at me and smiled crookedly. "Maisy; Shadowhunters aren't entirely human. We are nephilim; humans born with angel powers. We fight demons and dark creatures and we've been protecting humans for a thousand years."

The words smacked me in the face, my whole mind shutting down. What was she saying? How could…how could this be possible?

"And you're one of us Maisy. You're a shadowhunter."

Now I sit here, stunned. My mother and father are telling me about their world, their strange universe that I never saw coming, and I can think about is how I have been lied to. My mother uses the stele—the word burns in my thoughts—to draw a tattoo on herself. She calls it a rune. My eyes are wide and my heart beats fast. How has everything changed so suddenly? Why have they only decided to tell me now? How can I really believe them? As romantic the idea is, of this underworld of secret angel agents, reality still weighs heavy on me. My parents could just be insane.

"Mom, what was gran's letter about then?" I ask, finally snapping out of my thoughts.

My mother and father exchange a glance. My mother nods. "Your gran wants you to go to New York. That's where a main group of shadowhunters live. At least, in America."

"At the institute?" I demand harshly. My mother nods. Of course.

"Apparently they are rounding up quite a few young shadowhunters to get them trained and ready. Apparently the other institutes haven't been doing a good job." She says this to my father and he shakes his head, rolling his eyes.

"The Detroit institute is a mess," he concurs.

"Do I have to go?" I ask. "Am I being forced?"

"I don't want you to," my mother sighs, "but we…we made a deal a long time ago with my parents and The Clave. We wanted you to be raised normally, away from all the strangeness of the shadowhunter world. They don't usually let shadowhunters just get up and leave but we promised to contribute to the Michigan institutes and we had…we had good reasons. So we made a deal that once you were old enough we would send you back and we would become involved in the world again."

"So technically yes?"

"Technically, yes."

We sit in silence for a few moments, the thoughts we are all having almost tangible.

"It's so much to take in," I whisper and my parents nod. "But how come I've never seen anything before?"

"Oh, it's been close. There are all sorts of magic at work to keep mundanes from seeing demons or downworlder or shadowhunter things. We wouldn't want werewolves to just run around on main street!"

"Werewolves? Werewolves are _real_?"

"All the legends are true," my mother confirms and I have to really sit back now, adjust. This can't be true. This is some big April Fool's joke.

"So I suppose I should just go on down to New York now and become a shadowhunter, huh?" I say with a forced giggle.

"You already are a shadowhunter; you need to be trained to fight like one now."

Oh great, _training. _"What about school?"

"You will get tutored in New York. Tutored in more…interesting things."

"And there will be other people my age?"

"Gran said that they're bringing in ten of the most promising shadowhunters who need better training. They'll likely be your age," my mom says enthusiastically. I try to keep my hopes up. If I go and meet these people maybe this time we'll have something in common to talk about. Maybe shadowhunters are different to humans. "You don't have to stay very long at all Maisy. Just go for a month or so and learn about shadowhunters, see that we're not crazy and making this up and get to know the culture. It's all I owe them and once that is done you can come back to your normal life if you want."

_Normal _life. _Boring, depressing _life. Or a new chance, a change, a fresh start. In New York, of all places.

"Okay," I say quietly. "I'll go to New York." I will go to New York and become a Shadowhunter.


End file.
